


Escalation

by Starlightify



Series: to ground [2]
Category: DCU
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Background Relationships, Dermatillomania, F/F, F/M, Gen, Multi, Past Abuse, Pre-Relationship, Recovery, Trans Character, neurodivergent character, the joker still doesn't appear as a character but is still involved in much of this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-29
Updated: 2016-11-04
Packaged: 2018-08-27 18:09:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8411407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starlightify/pseuds/Starlightify
Summary: Harley and Ivy settle in to Themyscira. Batman plays catch-up. Selina goes hunting.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is part two of "To Ground," a story that's pretty much ascended spitefic about several Joker-related storylines that have deeply unsatisfying resolutions. It's about trauma and recovery and what that looks like for different people. It's also, ultimately, a story about getting free.
> 
> The entire series deals with abusive relationships and trauma. "Escalation" also contains depictions of arson, discussions of murder, mentions of harm to children, mentions of police brutality, discussions of the psychological effects of abuse, and, in the third chapter, a brief scene of accidental self harm. If those aren't concepts you're comfortable reading about, please don't sacrifice your mental health to read this story.
> 
> Characters and relationships will be tagged as they appear. We'll try to tag the overall themes of each story from the get-go.

Batman doesn’t say anything about Harley taking the duffle bag, or any of his stuff, which is really nice of him and also proves that he’s definitely rich, because Harley took so much stuff. Mostly just to see if she could. But Batman’s not worried about replacing it. Or if he is, he’s not telling her.

Harley wonders if it’s because he thinks she’ll break if he yells at her.

She wonders if everyone thinks she’ll break if they yell at her. Because no one is. Yelling. At all, which is… weird.

Ivy pulls into the shipyard at Diana’s direction. It’s not hard to spot the Amazon ship. They didn’t really make any concessions to Man’s World when they built it, all golden and gleaming, with oars and sails and a curvy-uppy bit at the front. It stands out among the grey and white freighters like a golden eagle in a room full of pigeons. Not that anyone should ever put golden eagles and pigeons together. That would be cruel. Pigeons are perfectly decent birds, anyway, and they make pretty sounds.

Harley’s sitting in the backseat with her hyenas, because Diana is _tall_ , and she didn’t want to make _Wonder Woman _try to cram her legs into the back. Now Diana can stretch out and Harley can have her babies next to her. Win-win.__

__She’s so glad she got them out. Even if she didn’t get anything else. She’d been walking them when she’d had… the thought, and she wasn’t about to leave them behind when she called Ivy to pick her up. She had to leave behind everything else - she’ll probably never see any of her old stuff again, which is…_ _

__Is…_ _

__She has her babies, anyway, and that’s the most important thing. Mister J never did remember to feed them. Or walk them, or anything. That’s why Harley thought she should get to name them, why she calls them by different names than the ones Mister J gave them._ _

__“So we gotta go up through Canada to get into the ocean, right?” Harley asks, scratching Scoob behind the ear. “I don’t have my passport.”_ _

__“Unless you wish to disembark in Canada, you will not need your passport,” says Diana._ _

__“Okay.” Harley looks out the window. She hasn’t seen any of the Justice League around, but she’s sure they’re there. They’re the promise-keeping type. She’s very impressed that she can’t spot any of them, though, because while she didn’t doubt that they _thought_ they could be subtle, she did doubt whether they could _actually_ be subtle. Turns out they can. Neato. She wonders if Batman gave them stealth lessons._ _

__Batman’s a really nice guy, which is weird. Harley sort of knew that he could be nice - he brought her the dress she wanted when she got sent back to Arkham that one time. But jeez. After everything she’s done, everything she’s been involved with…_ _

__Everything she forgave the Joker for…_ _

__It’s a lot, anyway._ _

__The car bumps up a ramp, onto the golden ship._ _

__Harley strokes Dottie’s ears._ _

____

~x~

Three days after Bruce gets the late night (early morning? He never has figured out the proper classification of the early AMs) phone call from Selina, someone tries to burn down the Iceberg Lounge.

Batman arrives before the firetrucks do - unsurprising, given the target. The firefighters are probably scared that it’s a gang altercation, or a supervillain altercation, and they’ll be the next targets.

It’s impressive work. The Iceberg Lounge is full of water. Burning it is no small feat. Flames are licking through the shattered windows, spitting sparks. Bruce is thankful that Cobblepot decided the seals were a bit much last year - the logistics of saving seals from a fire is not really something he has much experience with. Saving humans from a fire, that he can do.

He enters, full-face mask firmly in place, filtering breathable air from the ash and smoke. Tim isn’t with him - he’s been keeping Tim off patrol as much as possible, lately. The Joker may have been quiet since Harley left, but Bruce knows that won’t last, and he’s not going to let that green-haired murder anywhere near Tim. He’s been working with Barbara, learning about how she’s set up her information network. Tim seems to enjoy the work, and Bruce is grateful for it. He doesn’t want to have to worry that Tim’s sneaking out and following him against orders.

It’s been harder to keep Steph out of the field - as she keeps reminding him, she’s not _anyone’s_ sidekick. But Tim, Barbara, and Bruce have been trying to impress on her the danger that the Joker poses to any associate of the Bat’s, particularly in these circumstances, and they seem to be getting through to her. Bruce hopes they’re getting through to her. He also doesn’t want to have to worry that Steph is sneaking out.

And Dick… Dick is in New York, where hopefully he’ll stay, at least until this whole mess is resolved. Bruce didn’t ever think there would be a situation in which he’d be grateful that Dick is so far away from home,, but here he is.

Bruce’s mask feeds him information. Four immobile bodies, dead. Three immobile bodies, living. One body, strung up on the ceiling, living and thrashing around.

Bruce is going to take a wild guess and say the one tied to the ceiling is Cobblepot.

He throws a batarang at the ropes holding Cobblepot up - it’s not a long fall, there isn’t much fire directly beneath Cobblepot, and dropping him means that he won’t inhale as much smoke and thus is more likely to still be conscious when Bruce is done getting everyone out. Conscious people are much easier to question.

He drags two of the living out - one has a bullet wound and blood seeping through their waistcoat, the other has second-degree burns along their arms, both are capable of walking as long as he assists them. Hears sirens. Drops the two far enough away that they won’t be catching stray sparks from the fire. Goes back for Cobblepot and the last person.

Cobblepot hasn’t run. He’s trying to get to something - probably a hidden vault - but the fire is spreading, outpacing him. He swats at his smoking coattails.

Bruce picks up the third unidentified person (knife wound, didn’t hit an artery, did make them pass out) and carries them to where he left the other two. The firefighters have arrived, as have the EMTs. Bruce hands his charge off to them and turns to go back to the Lounge.

“You can’t!” one of the firefighters calls.

The mask means that they can’t see how completely unimpressed Bruce is with that assertion, but he hopes he’s managed to convey it through his body language.

Bruce goes back into the fire - and a beam promptly falls behind him, blocks the entrance. Of course.

Cobblepot has gotten to the vault. He’s pulling out a bag. Even filtered, the air smells like burnt skin. Bruce takes a moment to track the fire, observe its motions, catalogue its paths. Then he runs for Cobblepot. Cobblepot squawks, almost drops the bag, and Bruce lifts him into a fireman’s carry and keeps running. There’s a back door. There’s fire in the hall, but the Batsuit is fireproof, and he can keep Cobblepot away from the worst of it.

Bruce breaks down the back door.

The light from a streetlamp barely reaches the alley. There’s a dumpster, a few fire escapes. A banana peel. A grate. A message, painted in green on the wall across from the door.

_I’m coming for her_

No one around. The Joker is long gone - if he was here to begin with, if he didn’t just send his goons.

Cobblepot coughs like his lungs are trying to climb up his esophagus. Bruce continues down the alley, keeping an eye out for traps. He doubts there will be any - the burning Lounge doesn’t seem like the Joker’s kind of bait, but better safe than dead. He sets Cobblepot on the ground near the end of the alley. The police will come around soon.

“What did he want with you,” Bruce says. The full-face mask adds another layer of distortion to his voice.

Cobblepot wheezes. His glasses fell off at some point - before Bruce picked him up, or when they were running. It doesn’t matter. Cobblepot could afford fifty thousand new pairs of glasses with money to spare. His suit is scorched. He’s still holding onto the bag. Bruce will figure out what in there is so important in a moment. First things first.

Cobblepot tries to affect a glare, but shrinks back immediately. Maybe it’s the full-face mask. It turns Bruce’s face into a flattened, opaque oval. Featureless. Unreadable. That sort of thing scares some people.

“Harley’s gone,” Cobblepot says. “The Joker’s on the warpath. Quite distressed. Seemed under the impression that I might have delivered his doll from his -” Cobblepot coughs into his fist, ash-colored spittle flecking his fingers. “Ah. Pardon. I disillusioned him. He was... displeased.”

“How did he take you in your own house,” Bruce says.

“Apparently, many of tonight’s patrons were under his patronage. He planned this, quite precisely.” Cobblepot reaches up like he’s trying to push his glasses up and almost pokes himself in the eye. He squints at Bruce. “I don’t know where she is, and I hope she stays quite hidden. The Joker is a brute.”

“I’m aware,” Bruce says. “What’s in the bag.”

Cobblepot clutches it. “Nothing illegal, I assure you.”

“Convincing. Show me.”

The fire roars behind them. Cobblepot glares, then hands Bruce the bag.

Money.

Just money.

Bruce hands it back. “You’re going to the hospital. Smoke inhalation -”

“Yes, I am quite aware,” Cobblepot says. He struggles to stand. He didn’t have his cane when Bruce dropped him from the ceiling - it’s probably in pieces, burning in the Lounge. Bruce steadies Cobblepot and helps him rise.

Cobblepot sniffs, muffles a few more coughs. “I am capable of walking to the ambulance myself, Bat. Flutter off. You have a Joker to deal with.” Cobblepot’s eyes glint. “Give him _hell_ for me, would you?”

Bruce inclines his head, then fires a grappling hook and ascends. He waits on the rooftop to make sure that EMTs reach Cobblepot. When Cobblepot is in their care, Bruce leaves.

~x~

The Joker didn’t burn the Lounge as a message to Batman. He certainly knew it would get the Bat’s attention - but there are plenty of ways to get the Bat’s attention. The Lounge burned because Joker was sending a message to the Gotham Underworld. No one and nothing is safe until he finds Harley.

That’s not going to happen. 

Though Bruce elected not to accompany Harley and Ivy to the island, because he is hardly a positive figure in either of their lives, he is getting regular updates from Diana. Harley and Ivy are settling in as well as can be expected. While Harley refused to provide the location of the Joker’s current base, Ivy did provide the location of _hers_ , and the League was able to move all of her things to Themyscira. Ivy seemed calmer after being reunited with her plants, and Bruce thinks the familiar objects may have been a comfort to Harley, as well.

It’s not perfect. It’s not a solution. It doesn’t erase their problems. But it helps.

Now he has to figure out how to minimize the damage the Joker can do as long as he’s on the loose. The first thing is another call to Arkham - he’d given them a call with the vague message “You may need to expect a visit from the Joker. Increase your security,” after Harley had gotten on the ship, but now he can provide them with solid evidence that the Joker is shaking down anyone he can get his hands on for information on Harley.

Then he calls Selina.

“What’s up?” she says.

“Fire at the Iceberg Lounge. The Joker is looking for information on Harley. Tell me you’re being careful,” Bruce growls.

“I said I’d be,” Selina says.

“Then why are you awake at one in the morning.”

“Binge watching the X-Files.”

“Selina.”

“Honestly, B. I’m not going out. I’m not getting dressed. I’m just Selina Kyle, reclusive, cat-loving socialite.”

“Stay on guard.”

“I will. You do the same.”

“Hrm.”

Bruce hangs up.

Then he calls her back.

“Would getting the word out that the Joker’s after Harley make people be on guard against him, or make them try to find Harley to get in good with the Joker?” Bruce asks.

“Depends on the people,” Selina says thoughtfully. “The Arkham crew would probably all be on guard against the Joker - they love Harley and hate the Joker. Every other ne’er do well out there? Who knows. The Joker’s a big boss. He may be a fuckhead, but he’s a fuckhead with money and power, and that’s pretty damn appealing to a lot of people.”

“If you can get word out to the Arkham crew - _without_ putting yourself in danger - do it,” Bruce says.

“You got it, boss man.”

“Hrm.”

Bruce hangs up.

Then he calls her back.

“What?” she demands.

“Be careful,” he says, then hangs up.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now, for some original characters, and thickening of the plot. Oooh.
> 
> This chapter contains discussions of the psychological effects of abuse, mentions of police brutality, mentions of transphobia, mentions of homophobia, mentions of harm to children, and discussions of murder. Please stay safe!

Aella is very tall.

Not as tall as Diana. Harley doesn’t think anyone’s as tall as Diana, except the guy who played Chewbacca and probably whoever’s the tallest person in the world now. Diana’s really tall, is what she’s saying. But Aella is also really tall.

“You may do whatever you wish to be comfortable,” Aella says.

They’re standing in a really pretty grove. Ivy’s been going wild here - apparently Themyscira has a ton of plant species that are totally unknown in their world, or species that have been extinct for centuries. It makes sense. Well, about as much sense as a magic island can make, anyway. Themyscira’s this whole sacred refuge thing, so why wouldn’t it have a unique ecology?

“‘Kay,” Harley says. There’s a tree with really good branches. Harley glances at Aella, then starts climbing. Aella seems unperturbed. Harley finds a comfortable branch, still near the ground, and sits. “So, you wanna go over my hospitalization history, my medication history - I’m not on anything right now ‘cept the antidepressants, nothing else ever does what it’s supposed to - all my therapy history, an’ that?”

“Is that a format you’re comfortable with?” Aella asks. She sits on the ground.

“I dunno. I feel like, when I say certain stuff, people start making judgements, and by the time I get to the end of the whole list of everything I’ve been diagnosed with, they got all these ideas about who I am and what I’m like and when I don’t meet them they try to make me meet them.”

“I will not make you do anything,” Aella says.

“That so?”

“Yes.”

“‘Cause people keep saying that, and I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop, yanno?”

Aella’s eyebrows press together. “Who is throwing shoes?”

Harley barks a small laugh. “I always wondered that too. It means, like… when something’s going good, and you’re waiting for the trap. The price of the good stuff, or the bad luck when the good luck runs out.”

“I see.” Aella considers this. Harley reaches for a twig to strip the leaves off it, stops herself. That’s bad. That’s destructive. She doesn’t want to hurt the tree, she just wants something to do with her hands. Her leg bounces. “Have you considered that life is not what you call a zero-sum game?”

“Well, yeah, I know that, in general. Plenty of people who get a whole bunch of luck at the start and keep getting luckier. People whose lives are good and stay good. And then there are a lot of people whose lives start out bad an’ just get worse.”

“What do you feel your life path is like?”

Harley shrugs. “I feel like I’m just fucked no matter what I do. Everything good’s gotta go away sometime, and everything’s gonna be worse afterwards.”

“Why do you feel this way?” There’s no judgement in Aella’s tone. No pity. Just a mild curiosity.

Harley wants to talk about it. Harley’s always wanted to talk about this stuff. But before, she was too smart, too strong, to have problems, no matter what she said. Or people would try to use her problems to prove she _wasn’t_ smart or strong and she had to push them back, hide anything she struggled with. 

And after… well, after, she was the crazy clown girl. There was no getting to her. Not worth trying to. “Well, my home life was pretty crummy. Then I got to school, and that was good, only no one took me seriously. But overall not that bad. But it was hard, a lot of the time. To focus. To remember things and follow the rules. But I got through it, and I did it, and then I was gonna be a respected doctor, and I was, only… then I went to Arkham, and I met…” her throat feels tight. She swallows. Swallows again. “I met Mister J, and uh. I wanted to understand him. And after a while, I thought if I showed him I could relate, he’d tell me about himself. And so I told him a little about me, and all my brain stuff, and then it really seemed like he saw me, yanno? Like he got that I could be me, and be smart, and also be real fucked up in the head. No one really saw that before. And then, well, you know. And now I’m here. And I’m waiting for it to all go bad again, like it always has before.”

“And how do you feel about the waiting, or the bad things in the future?”

“I dunno,” Harley says.

She picks at the hem of the pale brown tunic she’s wearing, smooths it against her pale brown leggings.

“Tired,” she says. “I just feel tired.”

~x~

Selina’s taking Isis for a walk in the woods when her phone rings. Not the Selina phone. The other one.

“Hello?” she purrs, dropping into the lower register and alleyway drawl she uses as Catwoman. Funny, how her Catwoman voice is the voice that comes more naturally to her. She’s sure there’s people who’d think that says a lot about her psychology. She’s just as sure she doesn’t want to hear it.

“It’s Ivy.”

“There’s phone service where you are?” Selina asks. Isis pounces on something in the leaflitter, and a grasshopper just barely makes it away from her paws. Selina sends Isis a wisp of encouragement, and Isis crouches, pupils blown wide, and gets ready to pounce again.

“I know, I was surprised too. I need you to find me a hitman.”

“So I’m your gofer now?” Selina asks. Isis pounces, sends Selina a burst of happiness, and starts crunching on the grasshopper. “Hitmen are more your area than mine, anyway.”

“I can’t talk to any of my old contacts. If the Joker comes knocking, one of them’ll sing. He knows Harley and I are… close.”

‘Knows you’re in love with her and she’s half in love with you, you mean,’ Selina doesn’t say. “And I’m guessing ol’ J is who you want the hit on.”

“Precisely.”

“That’s a tall order. I don’t know a mobster in Gotham who isn’t at least a little afraid of the Joker.”

“I’ve heard of a guy,” Ivy says. “Red Hood.”

Selina snorts. That seems pretty out there, especially for Ivy. “Red Hood’s been around since we were kids, Ivy. It’s a shitty story street punks tell each other. A fucking gangster Robin Hood.”

“I fucking talk to plants, Cat. I’m on a goddamn magic lesbian island right now. I’m not inclined to dismiss any damn thing as just a story. Plus, word is, there’s a real guy who took up the name a couple months ago, and he’s been living up to the legend so far.”

“How good is this word?” Selina says. Isis spots something else and creeps along the ground, body low and ears pricked.

“I heard it from Titania, who heard it from one of her new girls. Red Hood killed her abusive fuck of a boyfriend. To hear her tell it, Hood’s a real decent guy.”

Selina can count the number of decent guys she knows on one hand. Ivy probably wouldn’t even need a hand to count. When Ivy says ‘decent guy,’ it’s usually in a voice that’s full of so much sarcasm it might as well be a sar-canyon. But now, her voice isn’t any more sarcastic than usual. That, more than anything, is what convinces Selina that there’s something to this story. “I’ll look into it,” she says.

“Money’s no object,” Ivy says, and Selina grins.

“Is it ever?”

Ivy laughs. “Don't even think about bringing this up to the Bat."

“Eat me, Ive,” Selina says cordially. “You know I wouldn’t let him in on this.”

“Just making sure we’re clear,” Ivy says, then hangs up.

Selina clicks her tongue. Isis turns, tilts her head. “Come on, baby,” she says. “It’s getting late, and mommy’s got some shopping to do.”

Isis whips her tail, but follows Selina back to the car.

~x~

Of course Selina’s not going to tell Bruce. She knows he doesn’t break his code, knows he’d feel morally obligated to try to keep the Joker from getting killed. Knows that there’s nothing the Joker could do that would make Bruce step back and let him die, because if that line existed, the Joker would surely have crossed it three years ago.

Three years ago, the whole Gotham Underworld all felt the presence of the Bat more heavily than ever before. Bruce came so far out of the shadows that the rest of the world finally acknowledged him as more than a weird Gotham legend. He went after everyone, took down anyone who stood in his way. Chased the Joker like a hellhound.

The Joker claimed it was because he’d killed Robin.

Not many people actually believed the claim. Sure, Robin was absent from the streets, but he’d been gone for weeks at a time before, and no matter how many people claimed to have killed him he always showed up again. Plus, when would Robin ever have been away from the Bat’s side for long enough for the Joker to get him? Something had changed between the Joker and Batman, that much was clear, but it wasn’t what the Joker said.

That was what most people thought, anyway. Selina knew better. And she was certain that when Bruce finally caught up to the Joker, the Joker was going to die.

But he didn’t.

The Joker went to Arkham.

And Batman stayed just as visible, just as open. Less and less people believed that the Joker had killed Robin, because why would Batman still be acting this way, taking these kinds of risks, after putting the Joker away, if a death in the family had been the inciting incident? Hadn’t Batman gotten his revenge?

After a few weeks, the Bat was back in the shadows. Mostly. And then a few weeks after that… a few weeks after that, Robin was back at his side, and that was about the point where no one really took the Joker’s claims of killing Robin seriously any more.

Selina knows more about the whole situation than almost anyone. Bruce had talked to her about Jason not long after taking him in, reasoning that there were some things about being a street kid he’d never understand, that maybe she’d have some insight into the things giving Jason trouble. She did, and she didn’t. They’d done and seen a lot of the same things. But there were still differences, and anyway, no matter how much empathy he received, Jason was always going to be an angry little fucker. Nothing wrong with that.

Selina likes to think, maybe, that she helped, that she made him feel a little better. She knows Bruce did. Jason and Bruce were close, for a time, and even though Jason had run away, Selina knows Bruce still cared about him. And that’s why she was so shocked when Bruce didn’t kill the Joker for what he did.

Bruce is committed to his code. Committed beyond all reason. He’s going to try to put the Joker away this time, too, and just like every time before, the Joker’s going to get out. That’s why Ivy and Selina need to find someone to put the Joker down for good.

Selina does her makeup at home and takes her wig and clothes with her. What’ll blend in when she goes to meet Titania at the Velvet Dive will be too flashy for the roads. No need to attract any cops who’ve decided that with all the supervillains in Gotham, their time is best sent busting queens.

~x~

One of the best things about being rich, Selina thinks as she puts on her gold-and-black collar, is that she doesn’t have to do her own wig maintenance any more.

The wig is in an angular bob not all that much longer than Selina’s hair, but it’s straight where her hair is curly and has gold highlights. The rest of her outfit keeps with the black and gold theme - black dress with gold piping, gold bangles, gold heeled sandals, black winged eyeliner, gold lipstick. She looks amazing.

She finds Titania just finishing her act - perfect timing. Selina applauds as Titania bows, then slips backstage.

“Ubaste!” Titania says as soon as she spots Selina. “How’ve you been?”

Selina hugs her, breathes in the familiar scent of coconut and jasmine over smoke. Not cigarette smoke - Titania still moonlights as a firebug, and as she’s complained, it’s very difficult to ever really get rid of the smell of fire. “Staying out of trouble,” Selina says, and Titania laughs.

“Oh, sure, I’ll buy that line,” she says. “Come on, let’s talk in my dressing room.”

Titania takes Selina back to the line of doors with glittering names on them, and opens the one at the very back labeled ‘Titania’ in green. There’s two mirrors and a table rimmed in lights, but there’s also a desk, an office chair, two armchairs, and a sleek computer.

Five years ago, back when the Velvet Dive was called Lou’s Underground, the Bat got a tip on the owner. Money laundering, trafficking, the usual trash. The Bat took him out, and look at that, the place was in want of an owner. Selina wanted to give Titania the money to buy it and fix it up. Titania insisted on it being a loan. She payed Selina back in six months. The place is many things - a drag bar, an information hub, a home to a lot of people. Titania’s a fair boss and a fair landlady. Selina’s sent a couple girls in need of guidance to her over the years, and Titania’s done her best to set them right. She’s a tough old lady, and if Selina has half her brass when she gets to be Titania’s age, she’ll count herself successful.

“Let me guess,” Titania says, sitting down at her desk. “You’re here about the big shake-up. The Iceberg Lounge, or something related to it.”

Selina is pretty sure Titania knows that Ubaste is Catwoman is Selina Kyle. She is just as sure that Titania isn’t interested in acknowledging that she knows. In any case, there’s no need to play games with Titania - and if Selina tried, Titania would know. Funny how someone who likes her privacy as much as Selina does wound up with so many damn detectives in her social circle. “The Lounge, and something I heard from Sue Mack.”

“Is that so,” Titania says. “They related?”

“Might be.”

“Hm,” Titania says. “What’s your price?”

“Depends on what you have for me,” Selina says, sitting in one of the armchairs. It smells like ten different kinds of perfumes and seven different kinds of makeup. “Two hundred minimum.”

“You know, usually my problem is people trying to lowball me,” Titania says. “What if I tell you I don’t know shit?”

“Then I’ll be paying for the pleasure of your company,” Selina says.

Titania laughs. “Sure, honey. So. The Iceberg. Not any firebugs I know, and it was a shit job. The Joker had his mooks throw some gasoline around instead of hiring a professional.”

Selina nods. “Do you know if he tried to talk to anyone?”

Titania laughs again, steeples his fingers on the desk. “When has that bad-suited jackass ever bothered to acknowledge that there’s things he can’t do himself? No, no one I know heard from him. And all of my folk’s’d sooner burn the cheap dye out of his hair than work for him anyway.”

“You know what he’s after?” Selina says.

Titania raises her eyebrows. “Who doesn’t? His girl’s gotten away. Good on her. ‘Course, that really puts the pressure on the rest of us. The Joker’s mad enough to hit the Penguin, he won’t give a second thought about all us little folks if he gets a mind to squeeze us.” Titania sighs. “Bad enough Garza’s been breathing down my neck again.”

“Phineas Garza?” Selina asks. The pinch-faced little fucker is a cop who fancies himself an up-and-coming boss. He’s been trying to carve himself a piece of Brideshead for years. She’d thought he’d laid off the Velvet Dive last year, when Titania burned his collection of antique cars into slag and set him running to replace them. Should have known he’d come sniffing around again eventually.

“It’s under control,” Titania says. “You got your own shit to worry about.”

Selina thinks differently, but that’s a fight for another time. She takes a roll of four hundred dollars out of her bra, and tosses it across the room to Titania’s desk. “Sue told me you heard of someone who might be able to take out the Joker.”

“Yeah?” Titania counts the bills, shakes her head, and stuffs them down her boot. “Who might that be?”

“Red Hood.”

Titania’s eyebrows go back up. “Red Hood,” she repeats. “You want to track down some guy who’s living out a street punk legend and ask him to whack the Joker?”

“Unless you have someone better in mind?” Selina asks.

Titania laughs. Laughs and laughs. “It’s never boring, talking to you,” she says.

“I do my best,” Selina says.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *dramatic music*
> 
> This chapter contains discussions of the psychological effects of abuse, mentions of police brutality, mentions of transphobia, mentions of homophobia, a non-graphic scene of accidental self harm, implications of harm to children, and discussions and brief scenes of murder. Please stay safe!

The phone wakes Selina at 3:02 in the afternoon. She grabs for it, finds that a cat knocked it off the nightstand at some point, and rolls half out of bed to retrieve it from the floor. “Hello?” she says.

“Can you tell me why Bruce just asked when I’d be able to pick you up from the airport?” Lois asks.

“What?” Selina says, squinting at the floor. “I’m not at any airport.”

“Figured. I told him if you wanted to be picked up from an airport, you could damn well call me and tell me yourself,” Lois says.

Selina absolutely adores her. “I absolutely adore you,” she says.

Lois makes a kissing noise. “Is Bruce trying to mail you to me because of all the shit the Joker’s been pulling in Gotham?”

All the… as far as she knows, nothing the Joker’s done beyond burning the Iceberg Lounge has been attributed to him, and only that because the Penguin presents the Lounge as a legitimate business and the Joker left a pretty obvious calling card. Lois has been digging. Considering she hasn’t been to Gotham in person in months, that’s pretty impressive work. “Probably,” Selina says. “He doesn’t trust me to stay out of trouble.”

“He shouldn’t,” Lois says immediately. “But he should trust you to be able to handle yourself.”

Selina feels like there are little bubbles in her veins. In a metaphorical, happiness way, because literal bubbles in the vein are a good way to kill someone and make it look like a regular heart attack. “Have I told you lately that you’re amazing?”

“I could always stand to hear it more,” Lois says. “Any suggestions for where I should tell Bruce to stick his plane tickets when I call him back?”

“I’m sure you’ll think of somewhere,” Selina says, and yawns. “I just woke up, and I’m pretty sure you’re working. Call you in the evening and we’ll have a longer chat?”

“Works for me,” Lois says. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Selina says, and then yells “I love you, Clark!” because she’s pretty sure he’s somewhere around Lois, and that means he can hear her and it’ll make him blush and by god if she’s going to be dating Superman’s girlfriend she might as well take every available opportunity to mess with Superman. The other rogues would be so awed. Not that she could ever tell them.

She catches the beginning of Lois’s laugh as she hangs up.

Selina stretches. Shower first. Then she can yell at Bruce about trying to mail her to Metropolis.

~x~

“The thing is, when I’m away from him, I can really think about it. And I know he’s no good. But as soon as I see him…” Harley sighs. “Soon as I see him, it’s like I just forget, and all I want is for him to love me. So I think it’s my fault, really. If I weren’t so, so…”

She spins a dial on the puzzle box. It had been waiting for her in her room four days after she arrived on the island, with a note attached saying it was from Diana. From Wonder Woman. A gift from Wonder Woman to little old nobody her. Imagine that. Harley has more fun playing with all the dials and knobs and whirlies than actually trying to solve the puzzle.

Aella waits, patient, for Harley to continue.

“Can it really be all that bad if I forget how bad it is when I’m with him and he’s not… y’know?”

“Yes,” Aella says. “This forgetting you describe is quite common in trauma.”

“I know. I know that. I studied, and I know, and…” She twists a knob fiercely. No matter how rough she is with the puzzle, it never breaks. She likes that. Something she can work her frustrations out on without fear of hurting anyone. “But it doesn’t seem the same, with me.”

“This is also common,” Aella says. “This understanding that you would consider what you are going through trauma and abuse were it happening to anyone else, while also being unable to think of it as trauma and abuse in your case.”

“Well, d’you think it’s abuse?” Harley’s expecting Aella to hem and haw, to say ‘Only you can decide that,’ or ‘What do you think,’ like every counselor she ever told about this part of her relationship with the Joker. As if saying that it was abuse would cause their license to spontaneously combust and armed guards to escort them off the premises.

“Yes. And were the Joker ever unlucky enough to find himself before me, I would strangle him with my bare hands.”

“Wowie,” Harley says faintly. “Never heard that one before.”

~x~

“She told you that she’d _strangle him_?”

Harley bounces sitting down, hugging a pillow. “Yeah! Innit neat?”

Poison Ivy strokes the leaf of a young aloe plant. Plants don’t really identify themselves or each other by names, so she doesn’t name them. She doesn’t need to name them to know them. “Very neat,” she says.

This is a good conversational opening. She may not get a chance like this again. 

The Joker needs to die. That’s not in question. What Ivy wants to know if having someone else kill the Joker would hurt Harley’s healing. Killing Woodrue was important for her, after all. Why deny Harley the chance to take revenge personally?

“So if you had the chance to kill him…” Ivy says, trailing off, leaving space for Harley’s answer.

Harley hugs the pillow tighter, and Ivy feels herself folding inward, growing cold. Has she made a mistake? Did she push? Misjudge?

“I’ve tried to kill him before,” Harley says in a small voice. “But he always gets inside my head, stops me. If he died… If he died, that’s the only way I’d really feel safe. But I always…”

Oh. “Can I hug you?” Ivy asks, and Harley nods, tears streaking her cheeks. Ivy approaches, arms open and posture soft. She wraps herself around Harley, a vine to a post, tucks Harley’s head under her neck. Harley clings to her.

“I want him to be dead,” Harley says. “But I can’t do it. I can’t.”

“That’s okay,” Ivy says. “It’s okay, Harl. I understand.” Ivy pets Harley’s hair. It’s coarse, rough from relaxers and bleach and _damage_ from years of making it acceptable for school, acceptable for work, acceptable for the Joker. “It’s okay, Harley.”

Harley sniffles, digs her fingers into Ivy’s back.

“I’ll make sure he dies, Harley,” Ivy says.

Harley is quiet for a while, then whispers “Thank you.”

~x~

It takes Selina a week from her meeting with Titania to track down Red Hood. In that time, the Joker’s burned another three clubs, killed fairly high-ranking members of at least four gangs, put Killer Croc in a traction, stolen countless weapons from both legal and illegal caches, and that’s just the big stuff. He’s going to war.

So’s Selina.

She’s been roaming the streets in the daylight and the nighttime, reaching out to her contacts. True to her word, she’s staying out of the Catwoman suit - but she has plenty of other identities to use.

Only twenty of her human contacts know anything about Red Hood, and of that twenty, only four people have intel beyond ‘yeah, I hear Red Hood’s real now’. 

Joan, the broad woman who shelters runaways in the rooms above her corner store, says that a few of her kids told her that a man in a red helmet had gotten them away from the traffickers who picked them up off the streets. Joan said the kids didn’t tell her what happened to the traffickers, but they aren’t afraid of being taken back. That says plenty.

Ferdi, the dockworker who once saved a kitten from drowning and is now followed by the grown cat everywhere he goes, says that he saw Red Hood running after three of the warehouses used by the Odessa mob blew up. Ferdi swore up and down that Red Hood had stopped running, pointed to him, and said “don’t do crime” before disappearing up a fire escape.

Card, the bookie who looks like a librarian and handles knives like a circus performer, says that the three drug pushers who come in every Tuesday had been talking about how members of their esteemed profession kept turning up dead. Every single one of the dead pushers had a note nailed to their foreheads that read ‘stay away from the kids’. The pushers at Card’s place were convinced it was the Red Hood who’d done it.

“Gruesome, huh?” Card had said, spinning a butterfly knife.

And then there’s Titania’s new girl. Dragonfly, her name is. Selina got Titania to set up a meeting with her. Dragonfly had pale blue hair, and bruises barely faded on her arms. Her nails were neat, but her cuticles were ragged.

“He came outta nowhere, you know?” she said. “Like he was Batman or something. Just dropped down on Chris’s head when Chris started hitting me and smacked him into the pavement. Then he slit Chris’s throat, like,” Dragonfly drew her finger across her neck. “I never saw that much blood. Then he cleaned his knife up and told me how to get to Titania. When I asked who he was, he told me he was Red Hood. Had a helmet, like… covered his whole face and head.” Dragonfly’s eyebrows twisted together. “He was pretty short, too. But built. And moved like no one’s business.”

‘Like Batman’ seems an apt comparison, with one key difference. Like Batman without the no kill code. Red Hood doesn’t leave justice to the law. Doesn’t tie people up and leave them for the cops. Doesn’t put them in the hospital with a few broken bones and a stern warning. He puts them down. Fast. Ruthless. 

He definitely seems like her man, if he’s the type to take accept hires. Which he might not be. Maybe she’s stretching the Batman comparison, but it seems like Red Hood’s not doing this as the behest of someone else. No one’s stepping in to fill the vacuums left by the people and operations Red Hood is taking out. He’s not a hired gun working for some new player. He’s in this to dole out his own particular brand of justice.

But however interesting the insights she gains into Red Hood’s character are, none of the stuff she gets from those four is all that helpful for actually tracking him down. He’s moving all over the city, not bound to a singular location or type of hit. She can’t find him with the information her human contacts give her.

Her other contacts, though…

The cats of Gotham have seen Red Hood on the rooftops, in the streets, in the drainage tunnels beneath the city. He feeds them. But he never stays long. And that’s odd, for a man who goes out of his way to carry around cans of cat food and cat treats. He wouldn’t be feeding them if he didn’t like cats. But to dodge them like that, distract them with food and disappear while they were eating…

Selina might almost think that he doesn’t want them to know where he’s going or where he’s come from.

And that is very peculiar, because most people don’t think about hiding things from cats. Who’s a cat going to tell?

Aside from Ivy, Bruce, and Bruce’s brood, no one knows she can talk to cats. She told Ivy because she wanted to bond over their power sets, she told Bruce and his flock because they wanted to know how she got her information and why it had very weird gaps sometimes. Cats don’t always focus on the things humans think are important, after all.

Selina doesn’t really spread that kind of knowledge around, because she doesn’t want people to start killing cats because they’re worried she’s spying on them. She can trust Ivy and the Bat-people to keep her secret, because she has plenty more of their secrets. Balance of power. Mutually assured destruction. And all that.

But this Red Hood… he’s acting like he knows that someone could be using the cats to track him.

So now Selina’s got another reason to track him down. Who the fuck is he, to come out of nowhere and know to keep Gotham’s cats off his tail?

With some work, it’s the cats who get him. Red Hood moves through the East End, smelling of gunsmoke. He distracts the cats, as usual. There’s more of them than there have been before, but it’s August. They’re starting to try to fatten up for the winter. He feeds them, moves on, and leaves a trail of contented cats who fondly remember the man in the red helmet who gave them food.

Selina follows him. Through the warehouse district. Down through some construction sites, abandoned in the nighttime. Through more construction sites, abandoned because the money ran out. Into the shell of an apartment building, gritty and broken, with missing walls and graffiti on the door. The most recent tag marks it as claimed, occupied. No other tags have touched it.

She scales the building. There’s a light on the third floor - firelight, from the hue. She peeks over the sill, ready to pull back in case Red Hood is waiting for intruders with a gun in hand.

The room is empty. Selina lifts the window and climbs higher.

There’s a lot of guns. A lot of ammo. A futon in the corner, with a pillow and a duvet. A case of water bottles. A case of Cliff bars. A red helmet on the floor. A backpack. Mold stains on the walls and the ceiling, and the musty smell of old dust and old grime. A splashing sound behind a barely-open door. Several fat candles, set around the room.

Selina crouches on the sill, ready to spring backwards and drop if he starts shooting. “Red Hood, I have a job offer.”

The splashing stops.

“I’m unarmed and alone,” she says. Well. She has her whip. And knives. But she doesn’t have a gun, so that counts as unarmed. “I just want to talk.”

“That so?” calls Red Hood.

It’s a Gotham accent. Alleyway drawl. Not precise enough to be an affectation. A bit of gravel - a smoker’s growl. Despite that, he sounds young.

“Just talk, promise. You don’t like what I have to say, I’ll leave.”

Red Hood snorts. And then he steps out from behind the door, a gun in each hand and a worn pair of sweatpants slung low on his hips.

God.

He can’t be more than twenty.

Less than five foot eight, if her mark’s right. Soft skin, between the scars. Fuck, the scars. He’s covered in them. Probably some of the worst scars she’s ever seen on someone that young. The burn scar is particularly nasty - slick, shiny skin all over his front, bumped and rippled where new scars formed over it. What the fuck did he do, lay on a stick of dynamite?

He has black hair with a white streak in the front. Selina doesn’t smell hair dye on him, and the white and black both go straight to the roots, which suggests it’s either natural or a really damn good wig. She sees the edge of a scar under the white streak. Sometimes hair grows back a different color if the skin beneath has been damaged severely enough, she remembers with a sick sort of fascination. Someone, or several someones, really worked this kid over.

He also has the muscles of someone who’s trained to _fight_ rather than to look good, thick curves sheathed in fat, and the scarred knuckles of a pugilist.

The gun in his left hand bobs. He swallows. “Selina?” he asks, sounding even younger than he did before.

Well, fuck. That snaps her out of her daze. “Sorry?” Selina says reflexively, because the name may just be a guess on his part. Even though her instincts are telling her she _knows this kid_. Instincts don’t make her any better at identifying faces, especially not kids’ faces. They grow and change too much.

“Don’t bullshit me, Selina Kyle,” Red Hood snarls. “I haven’t been gone that long.”

“I don’t know who you are,” Selina says. “That seems unfair, seeing as you clearly know me.” She holds very still. Don’t want to startle the kid with a pair of guns. Don’t want to find out just how bulletproof her suit is. It’s similar to the material Nightwing's suits are made out of - lightweight, gives her a good range of motion, bulletproof to a degree. She doesn’t know the exact limit of that bulletproof-ness - and between the close range and the constant improvement and modification of weapons to get through bulletproofing, she doesn’t want to play the odds. But she also doesn’t want to vault out the window just yet, not after all the work she’s put into this.

The kid lowers his weapons. Slowly. He shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter. What’s the job?”

There’s a saying about curiosity and cats. And… Selina eyes the guns. She can investigate Red Hood’s identity more thoroughly on her own time. “It’s a hit. On a boss.”

“Pff,” Red Hood says, shrugging lazily. “Bosses aren’t generally any less squishy than their people. Which boss?”

“The Joker.”

Red Hood’s body goes rigid. There’s a heavy pause between his last breath before she named the Joker and his first breath after. The skin around his eyes tightens. His fingers, all except the ones on the triggers, tighten. Selina gets ready to jump backwards. “The Joker,” he says, spitting the last syllable as if it’s rotten beyond all hope of redemption. “He’s not just a boss.”

“And you’re not just a hired gun,” Selina says carefully. He’s got a beef with the Joker. That could make this complicated.

“Ha.” A hard, humorless laugh. “I don’t do hires, generally speaking.” And then Red Hood, to Selina’s surprise, sits cross-legged on the floor. He sets one of his guns down and starts scratching at a red, irritated patch of skin on his arm. “But I might make an exception. What -” his skin tears under his nails and blood beads up. He curses quietly and grabs the backpack by a strap, drags it over. Opens it, takes out a pill bottle, swallows an indeterminate amount of pills dry. Reaches in again, and pulls out a first aid kit. It has shiny stickers shaped like dogs on it.

“You okay?” Selina asks, sinking lower into her crouch to mirror his position without compromising her ability to leap out the window.

Red Hood cleans and bandages the tear efficiently, then snorts. “Well, I’m not gonna drop dead before I can whack the Joker, if that’s what you’re worried about.” He seems to find the statement funny, huffing out a harsh chuckle before asking “What’re you offering for the hit?”

Selina eyes the bandage on Red Hood’s arm. He’s erratic. Has a personal vendetta against the Joker, which is just as likely to make him slip up as it is to make him work harder. He may not be her guy after all. “I want you to prove to me you can do it,” Selina says.

Red Hood narrows his eyes. “You went out of your way to find me and now you want to act like you don’t think I can do it?”

“Well, now I’ve seen you, haven’t I?” Selina looks pointedly at the youthful lines of his face. She’s not one to underestimate someone’s lethality on the basis of youth - with her history, she knows better - but she also knows most young people, to some degree or another, have complexes about their age. Are used to being underestimated. Pinning her distrust on his age rather than the fact that he’s got a vendetta seems like the safer option, the excuse he’s more likely to buy. “If you can take out a different target of my choice, you’ll have the job.”

“This ain’t no fucking Costco, amiga. I don’t give free samples,” Red Hood snarls, and Selina bites back a laugh. Oh, to be young and blustering. “You want me to off someone, you pay me for it.”

“Of course,” Selina says, swallowing her mirth. “Kill Phineas Garza, and we’re in business.”

“You gotta give me more than a name, unless you want me to go through a phone book Terminator style.” Red Hood starts scratching at a different patch of skin, then flattens his fingers against his arm with forced casualness. “There a particular Phineas Garza you want offed, or do you just not like the name?”

“He’s a GCPD officer. Lives in Brideshead.” Selina stops there. Waits to see what he’ll do with the information.

“He’s as good as gone,” Red Hood says. “You want I should leave a message with his body, or would you rather keep it simple?”

‘You want I should?’ Selina repeats mentally. That slang’s from way before his time. Before hers. Red Hood is a man of interesting phrases. “Keep it simple. Clean. No message. If you can make it look like natural causes, even better.” The last thing Titania needs is to be under suspicion because a mouth breathing dirty cop with a history of harassing her turned up dead of acute bullet-itis.

“Cool. Can do. How much?” Red Hood asks.

“Forty thousand for Garza,” Selina says.

Red Hood’s jaw goes slack. He tries to marshal his features back into a nonchalant, unimpressed mask, but his eyes are still wide, and there’s a flush of color in his cheeks. “And for the Joker?” he says, in a voice that is clearly meant to sound calm but does not sound calm at all.

“A hundred thousand.”

Red Hood hesitates. His fingers bob around the grip of the gun he’s still holding, like he’s moving them to help himself count, make a list. “Alright, amiga,” he says. “You got yourself a deal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thus concludes "Escalation." Join us on Wednesday, when things get even more intense.


End file.
